Chapter 11 - The Embezzlement Discovery
I needed to secure the home office before bringing Elena back. While going through my father’s old oak desk, looking for some utility bills, I found a hidden ledger shoved in the back of a bottom drawer.
It was written in my mother’s handwriting.
I sat down and flipped through the pages. My blood boiled all over again. While Elena had been acting as the gracious host, letting them live rent-free in the house, my mother and Chloe had been quietly siphoning money from Elena’s personal checking accounts.
They had forged Elena’s signature on checks to pay for their country club memberships, spa days, and luxury vacations while I was deployed.
I immediately called Thomas.
“Add financial fraud and identity theft to the pile,” I told him, snapping pictures of the ledger. “They weren't just abusing her physically. They were stealing from her right under her nose.”
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“This just escalated from a domestic case to a major federal fraud issue,” Thomas said, sounding genuinely shocked. “Marcus, they are looking at serious, hard time. This establishes a clear motive for why they hated Elena so much. She was the one holding the purse strings, and they wanted her out of the way.”
“Give the ledger to the DA,” I said. “Bury them.”
